


Talkin' Bout my Regeneration

by Dawnwind



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose learns more about the changes in the Doctor as they leave London after the battle with the battle with the Sycorax.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talkin' Bout my Regeneration

Rose couldn’t help sneaking glances at the man across the table from her, examining every inch, every single move, looking for the differences and similarities.

Probably not fair really, comparing him to his predecessor, but anyone would have done the same. And so far, she’d seen no sign of her old friend, nothing tangible that proved that this man was the same man she’d known now for–how did she tally up the experience in terms of time? Years wasn’t accurate, neither was months or even milliseconds.

She felt like she’d known this man all of her life and never, ever long enough. To be presented with a completely new version just when she’d thought she’d finally understood the old one–really come to know who he was and how he thought–it was confusing, if not downright illogical.

All the same, here he was, in the flesh, hearts beating strongly, wolfing down his Christmas pudding as if it were the first one he’d ever had.

Perhaps it was. Perhaps he was new all over again, each time.

At least he had recognized her. Called her by her name, and chastised her in that teasing, winky-nudge-nudge way that was truly his own. And yet, so very different.

“So I says to him, mate, can’t park in the zebra crossing. Yer going to have to move that lorry or the cops’ll be down in a . . .” Mickey was saying and his audience of two laughed heartily at the story, but Rose realized that she hadn’t the foggiest what he’d been talking about.

For that matter, her own pudding was still sitting untouched in front of her, the hard sauce now going quite hard.

“Rose?” he said softly, holding out the last of the Christmas crackers, and in that instant she felt him, knew him, welcomed him back again, accepting him completely in a way she been almost afraid to, earlier in the Sycorax’s den. His features were totally unlike the man she had known, the color of his eyes and his not-ginger brown hair, but looking out of those eyes was her Doctor.

“Happy Christmas,” she said automatically and pulled on the opposite end of the cracker. The tiny explosive pop made her jump–funny, she’d faced down Daleks and creepy aliens and a tissue paper cracker made her jump.

“Scared you, didn’t I?” he asked and smiled. Mickey and her mum might have been on another continent for all she noticed them just then.

“Nah,” she grinned, unwrapped the delicate blue paper crown and the tiny plastic cell phone that were her prizes. Except, she knew what he meant, and the answer was yes to that question. She had been scared. Scared that she’d lost his essence, that he’d dissipated back into space to be with his dead brethren. “Just surprised is all.”

“Keeps the heart pumping,” the Doctor agreed emphatically.

He jumped up, switching subjects so fast it made her head whirl. “Jackie! A toast!” The Doctor held up the best faux Waterford goblet, the claret within shining like the deep heart of a ruby. “May this wonderful planet remain–and the people always stay happy!”

“Here, here!” Rose clinked her glass with his first, then Mickey, then her mother. She saw the slight hurt cross over Mickey’s face. She was aware that he kept holding out hope that some day she’d come back, stop tripping around the galaxy hand-in-hand with a charming Timelord from Gallafrey. She wouldn’t. Not if she had any say in the matter.

“Safe on Earth!” Jackie raised her glass, already slightly tipsy.

Rose shivered, the escape from the Sycorax still fresh in her mind. Her mother drank down her share of the wine in one gulp, helping herself to another right away. Rose took a large swallow of claret, feeling the sweet/hot flavor all the way down her throat, but one was enough for her. She understood Jackie’s need to fortify her courage. What would have happened if the Doctor hadn’t come through for them? Would they have all eventually been controlled by their blood types–helpless slaves of the aliens?

But he had. He’d saved the world again, as he always did. Rose wasn’t sure when this trust, this surety had replaced terror, but it was long ago–soon after the Doctor had picked her up out of London’s dirty streets and shown her the world.

No, not the world, the universe. The galaxy. And given her a reason for being.

Once she’d thought she loved Mickey Smith, and a part of her–the one who loved bangers and mash on Saturday nights before a stroll to the pub to watch a game of darts over two pints of shanty and then the cinema after–would always love him. But the rest of her had loved this man, The Doctor.

Loved him enough to leave Earth behind and travel through time.

“Rose, we’d best be going, then.” The Doctor took a last bite of pudding, chewing with a satisfied smile. “Best one yet, Jackie.”

“Sainsbury’s special.” She winked saucily at him.

“Can’t go wrong with Sainsbury’s, although I can remember having an absolutely splendid figgy pudding once with Nyssa and Tegan . . .” he trailed off, shaking his head and pulling on a long, military-issue greatcoat. “I like a lot of sultanas. At least, I think I do. Sultanas make the pudding, I say, and why shouldn’t I, because I must have eaten hundreds, if not thousands of the things. Mind you, Atrios has a marvelous pud that contains . . .”

“I just like the sauce,” Mickey said, dipping a finger into the nearly empty glass jar. He glanced at Rose, sucking on the end of his sticky finger. “You’re leaving?”

“You knew that.” Rose took off her silly hat, leaving it in the detritus of the table on top of the pink paper crown she’d worn before they went out in the ‘snow’. A tangle of red and green streamers were draped around the bottle of claret. “You knew it would happen. I can’t stay here.”

“But I wish you would,” he said sincerely.

For one moment she wavered, wanting both, and threw her arms around him. The feeling that she was going to cry caught her by surprise as she was kissing Mickey’s stubbly cheek. Her mother got the same treatment, so that by the time the Doctor held open the door, Rose was gay again. She giggled with excitement, running past him to the Tardis parked so ignobly at the end of their close.

The ash from the Sycorax’s ship breaking up in the atmosphere had settled, giving the run-down neighborhood the feel of a Victorian Christmas card, all the apartment blocks softened by a layer of the powdery white stuff. The unruly twins from across the way had even managed to build a tiny, misshapen figure from the pale ash, which reminded Rose unpleasantly of a Dalek, although a melty sort of one.

She didn’t care. She didn’t think ahead to what might be discovered beyond the Earth, when they were zipping through time up there in the cosmos. Everything was better up there, away from sooty, ash-covered London. Everything was better with the Doctor.

She didn’t really feel properly gone until the lurching, groaning, crunch of the Tardis’ engine filled her ears, drowning out the Doctor’s words. He was singing, of all things–something from Mary Poppins, she thought, but wasn’t quite sure.

“Up through the highest height . . .” he warbled, flicking switches and pulling levers, seemingly at random. The floor underneath them shuddered, the asthmatic clank of the Tardis altering as if changing keys.

“Where are we going?” Rose asked at last, staring at the place where she had last seen the Doctor–the old one, the one she’d first met. How exactly did she refer to him? He wasn’t dead–the proof was right there, singing. He wasn’t alive, though, not really. Her old Doctor would never had been this . . .silly, this childlike.

Her first Doctor had had a smile that lit a room, as if joy beamed out of his wide blue eyes, transforming his sharply planed face into something softer, gentler. He’d had a feral, streetwise attitude that Rose found familiar, like many of the guys who worked construction or down on the docks. Ready for action, fast on his feet with a quicksilver mind that awed her. He was so incredibly, out of this world smart. Ask him anything, anything at all and he knew the answer, or would find out at a moment’s notice.

This new one was another thing all together with the sweet, baby face of a Church of E choirboy. Huge dimples bracketed a puckish grin, and when his fringe dripped down in his eyes, her had to stop herself from reaching up to smooth down his not-ginger hair. He was a charming fool, a chatty magpie until crossed, and then his other side emerged, a darker, more ferocious man. The one who had fought off the Sycorax with a too-long sword, had his hand chopped off and still lived to growl, “It is defended.”

Who was her Doctor? Was the old one there, mixed in with the new one, and if so–how did that happen? How did this change, and the frightening illness that had bridged the two men heal him? Could it happen again?

“What are you thinking, Rose Tyler?” he asked, and it wasn’t the lilting voice of the new Doctor, but the Northern accent of the old one she heard.

Rose whirled, her heart thudding, suddenly far too warm in the down jacket she’d pulled on for the short walk from the house to the Tardis. The man standing by the console grinned, his dimples like bookends to that glorious smile–not the man she had expected to see.

“Does this . . .regeneration happen all the time?” She nearly stumbled on the unfamiliar word.

“Well . . .” he drawled holding up both hands in a who-knows sort of gesture. “It’s happened to me–oh, I dunno, any number of times.”

“How many?” Rose asked, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that he could change so blithely; a constant rebirth.

The Doctor leaned thoughtfully against the console of the Tardis. “It’s hard to explain. I can remember the birth of the cosmos, but my own–we never remember those first days, eh?”

“Not your primary school days!” Rose had the urge to stomp her foot. He really could be so infuriating. “The first time you did . . .this, whatever it is. Don’t you ever die?” The moment she’d said that, she regretted it. Of course Timelords could die. His whole planet, every single one of his people had been wiped out in the war with the Daleks. And yet, the Daleks had survived, no matter how improbably–and multiplied. Perhaps, since Timelords had such amazing regenerative properties, they had survived, too?

“You’ve thought of it, too, I see,” he said sadly.

For a moment she wondered if this new Doctor could read her mind, too, but then she understood. It was a natural reaction to the tragedy–he’d had it, too. The previous Doctor had the same hopes and this one cherished them, as well. Why hadn’t all those Gallifrean souls simply activated their —whatever it was that regenerated their bodies and emerged like butterflies from cocoons?

“I had a friend, a long time ago,” he said softly, the look on his face very sweet and somehow wanting.

“A girl friend, then?” she put in, emphasizing the word girl.

“A Time Lady.” He crossed his arms over his untidy suit jacket and she longed to straighten his tie for him. “Romana, she called herself. She was the only one I ever knew who regenerated just because she wanted to look at a different face in the mirror in the morning.”

This Romana had been someone special–not to her specific Doctor, but one that had lived eons ago and perhaps as recently as yesterday. Time restraints were impossible to describe with a man like him.

“I’ve always found the whole process tedious–a necessary evil, but not one I relish.” He got up decisively, tucking his arm into her elbow. “C’mon, I’m ready for a cuppa, how about you?”

Changing the subject, putting aside unpleasant memories with the help of —what had he said before, “a superheated infusion of free-radicals and tannins?”

“Lovely,” Rose agreed, allowing herself to be towed into one of the many rooms of the Tardis. As if they’d been heard by some invisible servant, there were tea things waiting in the Victorian styled kitchen where she’d hared many a meal with the Doctor in the past.

“Ten, I should think,” he said absently, holding out a sugar bowl with a mound of perfectly shaped cubes.

“That much sugar would make me quite ill!” Rose protested, her mind still half on the mysteries of regeneration. “I only take one, you know that.”

“Ten times, I think. I’ve had that many versions of me, that I can recall.” He dropped two lumps into his steaming cup. “Once saw five of us together–now that was a sight. I am he and he is me and we are all together, koo koo ka-choo.”

“Has this affected your head, then?” She poured milk into her tea.

“The Beatles?” he reminded, humming a tune that sounded very vaguely familiar, like something from her childhood. “I am the eggman . . .I am the Walrus,” he sang.

“Before my time, mate. Reckon mum might have known it. Ancient history. Sing something current.”

“I’ve heard all the greats– King Henry the Eighth fancied a pretty little soprano, and him still married to Anne Boleyn, too. What was her name? Oh, and just before the San Francisco earthquake of ’06, Enrico Caruso,” he mused. “That man could make the rafters shake. Shook my pelvis with Elvis . . . Frank Sinatra, Adam Ant. The Who–Roger Daltry was quite good. Spent the evening with them once, on tour. The Beatles–sometimes I’m one face, sometimes another, it’s quite confusing, so really, I tend not to dwell on the past of the others. Those tunes do tend to stick in the old noggin, going round and round like a record on a turntable . . .”

“When I first met you–well, the former you . . .”

“It’s all me, Rose, just packaged differently.”

“Yeah.” She smiled, feeling that glow she got whenever they were together. “I put Doctor–Who into the search engine and found a bloke who’d researched you–but only uh–the one who looked like you did last week.” She drank some tea, trying to organize her thoughts, but it was impossible. There was no ordinary way to talk about time with a Timelord. “Had scads of pictures of you–him. At President Kennedy’s shooting, and I think, the Titanic.”

“Wonderful ocean liner–you should have been there, Rose . . .” he started enthusiastically, then stopped with a laugh. “Well, no, better that you weren’t there. Not exactly safe, was it? But there was a Rose there, blond, a bit like you, and she fancied a chap named Jack, I think.”

“That was the movie.”

“It was?” He shook his head in wonderment, dimples transforming his face into that of a disarming and quite mischievous 12 year old. How could this man be hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old? And yet, underneath the sweet charisma she could sense the steel of the man who had fought off an entire army of aliens. “I must have seen it in a previous life.”

“Must have,” Rose agreed, and took the hand he held out, knowing that she’d have chosen to be on the Titanic, even knowing that it hit an iceberg, just to be with this truly extraordinary man.

Fin

 

 _Near, far, wherever you are_  
I believe that the heart does go on  
Once more you open the door  
And you're here in my heart  
And my heart will go on and on

The Theme from The Titanic


End file.
